Tag Archive | "Tracking"

GPS systems work around the basic principle called trilateration. Trilateration uses the known location of a transmitting device and the distances between these devices and the person using their GPS device to calculate the exact position of the receiver. This is very much like the more widely know triangulation, except that trilateration does not use angles at all in its calculations.

To better understand how this works imagine that you are standing at a some point int he middle of nowhere. You have no idea how you got there and all you have with you are the clothes on your back, enough food and water to travel for one day, and a GPS device. You wake up wondering where you are and you look at your GPS tracking watch and read that you are at a certain latitude and longitude at 10 feet above sea level. How does you GPS know so much more information than you?

Well, traveling 12,600 miles (20,200 km) above you is a system of 24 satellites maintained by the US government that are constantly transmitting microwave signals at the speed of light. These transmissions contain information read by that watch on your wrist – information used to accurately calculate your position on the surface of the earth. The basic information contained in these messages is the time at which the signal was initiated by the satellite and the satellites position. The distance between the receiver and the satellite is then calculated by multiplying the speed of the signal by the time is took to get to the receiver.

So your GPS device has invisible, silently, and quickly calculated your position, but what is that going to do for you in the hypothetical situation outlined above? Well, if your GPS device is simply a data logger (the simplest and most widespread GPS application) then you are still just as hopelessly lost as you where when you woke up. With no map you could head out in the wrong direct and end up dying a painful, horrible death alone in the wilderness – yuck.

But if you had a data pushing GPS device you can sit back and relax because you know that your device not only knows exactly where it is in the world, but it also is transmitting that information to a central database for the good guys (family, friends, or authorities) to see. They will know where you are to within 500 feet. The is pretty close. With a data pushing GPS device you can find some shade and rest in mother nature until the rescue team arrives. In our hypothetical situation you want a this type of GPS device.

It is important to note that each type of GPS device has its own application and use. For most people in most situations a data logger will do just fine. It tracks where you have been and has applications in hiking, biking, and running. But for situations where someone else would benefit from knowing your location – in tracking down a stolen vehicle, knowing the whereabouts of a child, or finding a lost hiker – than you definitely want to invest in a data pushing GPS device.

Kids don’t always like wearing their GPS watches. They can be unwieldy and cause your child to be self-conscious about wearing it. On top of that, kids often lose things that they don’t like wearing (like jackets and mittens) and losing a GPS device can be a big hassle. However, you don’t have to worry about a kid not wanting to wear their device if you can find a way to make wearing their watch fun and exciting.

You can do this by creating wonderful experiences around their GPS tracking watch. To start, purchase the GPS tracking device of your your choice. Then, set a date with your child when you will go on a trip to one of their favorite place. Theme parks or outdoor hiking works best. Before you go introduce your kid to the ideas behind GPS tracking systems, letting them know that the device you have can track where you have been and put it on a map for you to see. Let them know that you are taking this device with you on your trip because you think it will be fun. Instead of having your child wear the watch on this first trip, you wear it. This will give the GPS tracking watch an air of importance and respectability.

As you go about having a grand old time be sure that you reference the watch from time to time. If you are out hiking, stop and observe some plant, animal, or feature of the landscape. As you stop to observe it or as you are walking away from it you can say something very natural like, “I wonder where that spot is, I bet we will be able to tell when we look at our GPS information.” This will build some anticipation in the child for looking at the information that you device is recording.

Once you are home from the trip and have a chance to review the information be sure to site down with you child and review where you went. Be sure to highlight some of the better memories. Did you see any snakes? Were there especially beautiful flowers? Did you take a break under the shade of a 100 year old oak? All these can be talking points with you child and will help cement the idea that a GPS tracking watch can be a fun and interactive way to explore the world.

After that you child should begin to put fun and GPS in the same sentence. This is good if you want them to wear the watch on their own. Doing this once may be enough to get them to wear the watch on their own, but for those that want to go the extra mile in ensuring that their child will use the watch and keep it safe I would advise taking the next step.

In the next step you take the child out again on a fun trip, but this time you let them wear the watch. Do all the same things you did the first time like making mention of the watch and recapping the things that you did a later date. By doing something else that is fun with the child they will begin to take ownership of the kids GPS tracking watch. This ownership is important to develop if you want your child to use the GPS the way that you want them to.

When most of us think of GPS tracking watches one of two images pop into our mind. The first is that of a child locator that fits on the wrist of child. The second is that of a watch on the arm of an athlete (usually a long distance runner). Both of these watches are essentially the same, but used in very different ways.

The first watch is used almost entirely to track and keep tabs on a child. A concerned parent will outfit their child with a GPS tracking watch just in case the worst were to happen to their child. They feel that it gives them the peace of mind that they need to send their child off to school, or to the park, or to the mall. They often feel that this locating device is exactly what they will want if an abduction or kidnapping were to occur.

Normally watches like this help the parent take back some power that they felt has been stolen from them in our society of parental isolation. They cannot trust their neighbors to keep an eye on their children with them because we are so distanced from those that live around us, especially in suburbia. At a mall with a thousand people in it, your child could become entirely lost and could not see a single familiar face. People might walk by your child without even know that they are lost or in need of assistance.

A child locator watch is exactly what parents need in this circumstance. If they have an internet enabled phone, they can check their provider’s website and find the location of their child to within a few meters. Or, if the watch has a two way communication feature, the parent can call the child’s watch and communicate with their child – letting them know that everything is going to be okay and that they don’t need to worry. They then can get the information from the child that they need to locate them, ending the issue and empowering the parent.

Fitness GPS tracking watches work a little differently than a child GPS tracking watch. Most fitness watches are simply data loggers, gathering and storing information on the watch’s computer to be analyized at a later time. All you need to do with one of these watches is put it on your wrist, strap on your heart monitor (if you model supports one), turn your watch on, and head out on your run.

These watches will do all the work for you, recording your speed, elevation, and heart rate for you to see. They even will record your actual location so that you can integrate it with some mapping software back on your PC. Sometimes this software comes with your watch and sometimes you can use free software like Google Earth, it simply depends on the make and model of your watch.

These watches are good for fitness applications and while they can be used for other things (like analyzing you heart rate when you drive) they are pretty much only good for that.

As you can see, both types of GPS tracking watches provide the same essential GPS tracking function but do so for different purposes. A child GPS tracking watch is logs GPS information and then sends it out for the parent to see. A fitness GPS tracking watch, on the other hand, simply logs information for you to download later. Both have their place in, and both are used differently.

People exercise for a slew of different reasons. A few love testing themselves against the power of nature and like asking questions like, “What is more powerful, my legs or this mountain?” Others like to break up dull gyms by getting out into the sun and under the blue sky. Still others don’t want to fork out the money to exercise in a stinky, grimy hole in a wall. No matter what the reason is why you choose to do some of your workouts out doors you can benefit from a GPS tracking watch.

As the name suggests, these devices can track information – a lot of information. Most true GPS watches record some basic data, like your speed, total distance traveled, and changes in atlitude. These are all things that you might be able to gather without the watch, but the best you will able to get for most of them is a rough estimate.

Not so with a GPS watch. These devices can give you precise information concerning the distance you traveled as well as measuring the changes in altidute along the way. When the watch is combined with a heart rate monitor the information gathered by these devices is particularly powerful.

Here is a quick example: You just ran a 5.5 mile trail in 37 minutes. Without the GPS watch the best you can get is an average speed throughout the entire run (6:46 miles or about 10 miles per hour). With a the watch you can get a glimpse at how fast you were running throughout the entire run. You will be able to see where you ran faster, where you slowed down, and how well you were able to keep a steady pace.

This type of information is very important to those interested in improving their fitness and their stamina. By recognizing the difficult parts of your run you will be able train your body to cope with those situations.

Are you losing speed and momentum on your uphill climbs? Then introduce hillier courses into you exercise routine. Do flat, long stretches tire you out and slow you down? Practicing a quick and easy pace on a cadence might the solution to your problem.

Without the GPS tracking watch you will be forced to rely on your ‘feeling’ about your run rather than on cold, hard data. Data is much more objective than our feelings and often provides a truer picture of how well we performed.

When this type of information is added to heart rate data taken from a heart rate monitor it can help us analyze our workouts even better. We can get a better gauge of our actual fitness level by seeing the ranges in which our heart performs under the stress of our workout. When this is added to information already provided by the GPS tracking watch we can truely target the parts of our workout that push our hearts and our legs to the limit.

This type of information is simply not available to those who do not use this tracking device. Who has the cordination to hit a trail hard with one hand on their carotid artery while looking down at their regular watch? Add to that the need to notice landmarks and record the times at which you passed them and you get an impossible task for somebody trying to exercise for fitness.

These watches provide all this information without requiring anything additional from you. They fit nicely on your wrist and interface easily with your home laptop or PC. They often even have online software for you to track yand analyse your progress from any computer in the world. These devices are unecessary, but they are still pretty cool.

Learn how to use the new Timex Ironman Global Trainer with GPS technology while you run. To learn more please visit www.timex.caVideo Rating: 0 / 5